Crow: No tuition increase for in-state students

University President Michael Crow submitted a proposal Friday to the Arizona Board of Regents requesting tuition for in-state undergraduate students to stay the same next year, with minimal increases for other students.

In a video statement released to the ASU community the same day, Crow said the University had raised tuition costs to keep up with state budget reductions. In the past couple of years, however, revenue generated from new enrollment and ASU iCourses have helped replace the $200 million lost in budget reductions.

“We still sit at the end of working our way through the financial difficulties that have been placed upon us,” he said. “But we believe that we can continue to advance the University to higher levels of academic success.”

Crow said there would be a 3 percent increase for both out-of-state undergraduates and all graduate students, based on the Higher Education Price Index.

“I think it is very good news that we’ve been able to derive a financial model that greatly limits our tuition increase this year,” he said.

Crow has been aiming for a zero percent tuition increase since October, when he told The State Press editorial board the state has seen an increase in revenue.

After the state cut $207 million from all three of the state’s universities in its 2012 fiscal budget, Gov. Jan Brewer proposed returning $30.3 million of those funds in 2013.

Crow said he wanted the ASU community and future University students to understand the rationale behind his tuition decisions.

“It does call on all of us to understand that this is a very modest increase,” he said. “Understand that we are moving into an era of tuition moderation, and so we are going to have what we believe to be predictable tuition expenditures and tuition costs going forward.”